"Time tries the troth in everything."
--THOMAS TUSSER.
THE voice comes to her distinctly across the sward, browned by Winter's
frown, and over the evergreens that sway and rustle behind her back.
"Shall I answer?" says Dulce to herself, half uncertainly; and then she
hesitates, and then belies the old adage because she is not lost, but
decides on maintaining a discreet silence. "If he comes," she tells
herself, "he will only talk, _talk_, TALK! and, at his best, he is
tiresome; and then he worries so that really life becomes a burden with
him near. And the day, though cold, is bright and frosty and delicious,
and all it should be at Christmas time, and when one is wrapped in furs
one doesn't feel the cold," and she really means to enjoy herself with
her book, and now--
"Dulce!" comes the voice again, only nearer this time, and even more
pathetic in its anxiety, and Dulce moves uneasily. Perhaps, after all,
she ought to answer. Has she not promised many things. Shall she answer
or not, or--
This time her hesitation avails her nothing; a step can be heard
dangerously close, and then a figure comes up to her very back, and
peers through the thick hedge of evergreens, and finally Stephen makes
his way through them and stands before her.
He is flushed and half angry. He is uncertain how to translate the
extreme unconcern with which she hails him. _Did_ she hear him call, or
did she not? That is the question. And Stephen very properly feels that
more than the fate of a nation depends upon the solution of this
mystery.
"Oh! here you are at last," he says, in a distinctly aggrieved tone. "I
have been calling you for the last hour. Didn't you hear me?"
When one has been straining one's lungs in a vain endeavor to be heard
by a beloved object, one naturally magnifies five minutes into an hour.
Dulce stares at him in a bewildered fashion. Her manner, indeed,
considering all things, is perfect.
"Why didn't you answer me?" asks Mr. Gower, feeling himself justified in
throwing some indignation into this speech.
"Were you calling me?" she asks, with the utmost innocence, letting her
large eyes rest calmly upon his, and bravely suppressing the smile that
is dying to betray her; "really? How was it I didn't hear you? I was
sitting here all the time. These evergreens _must_ be thick! Do you know
I am horribly afraid I shall grow deaf in my old age, because there are
moments even now--such, for example, as the present--when I cannot bring
myself to hear _anything_."
This last remark contains more in it than appears to Mr. Gower.
"Yet, only last night," he says resentfully, "you told me it would be
dangerous to whisper secrets near you to another, as you had the best
ears in the world."
"Did I say all that? Well, perhaps. I am troublesome in that way
sometimes," says Miss Blount, shifting her tactics without a quiver.
"Just now," glancing at a volume that lies upon her lap, "I daresay it
was the book that engrossed my attention; I quite lose myself in a
subject when it is as interesting as this one is," with another glance
at the dark bound volume on her knee.
Gower stoops and reads the title of the book that had come between him
and the thoughts of his beloved. He reads it aloud, slowly and with grim
meaning--"_Notes on Tasmanian Cattle!_ It sounds enthralling," he says,
with bitter irony.
"Yes, doesn't it," says Miss Blount, with such unbounded audacity, and
with such a charming laugh as instantly scatters all clouds. "You must
know I adore cattle, especially Tasmanian cattle." As a mere matter of
fact she had brought out this book by mistake, thinking it was one of
George Eliot's, because of its cover, and had not opened it until now.
"Come and sit here beside me," she says, sweetly, bent on making up for
her former ungraciousness, "I have been so dull all the morning, and you
wouldn't come and talk to me. So unfeeling of you."
"Much you care whether I come to talk to you or not," says Mr. Gower,
with a last foolish attempt at temper. This foolish attempt makes Miss
Blount at once aware that the day is her own.
"You may sit on the edge of my gown," she says, generously--she herself
is sitting on a garden-chair made for one that carefully preserves her
from all damp arising from the damp, wintry grass; "on the _very_ edge,
please. Yes, just there," shaking out her skirts; "I can't bear people
close to me, it gives me a creepy-creepy feel. Do you know it?"
Mr. Gower shakes his head emphatically. No, he does not know the
creepy-creepy feel.
"Besides," goes on Dulce, confidentially, "one can see the person one is
conversing with so much better at a little distance. Don't you agree
with me?"
"Don't I always agree with you?" says Mr. Gower, gloomily.
"Well, then, don't look so discontented, it makes me think you are only
answering me as you think I want to be answered, and no woman could
stand that."
Silence. The short day is already coming to a close. A bitter wind has
sprung from the East and is now flitting with icy ardor over the grass
and streamlet; through the bare branches of the trees, too, it flies,
creating music of a mournful kind as it rushes onward.
"Last night I dreamt of you," says Stephen, at last.
"And what of me?" asks she, bending slightly down over him, as he lies
at her feet in his favorite position.
"This one great thing: I dreamt that you loved me. I flattered myself in
my dreams, did I not?" says Gower, with an affectation of unconcern that
does not disguise the fear that is consuming him lest some day he shall
prove his dream untrue.
"Now what is love, I will thee tell,
It is the fountain and the well
Where pleasure and repentance dwell,"
quotes she, gaily, with a quick, trembling blush.
"I expect some fellows do all the repentance," says Stephen, moodily.
Then, with a sudden accession of animation born of despair, he says,
"Dulce, once for all, tell me if you can care for me even a little." He
has taken her hand--of course her right hand on which a ring is--and is
clasping it in the most energetic manner. The ring has a sharp diamond
in it, and consequently the pressure creates pain. She bears it,
however, like a Cranmer.
"I don't think even my angelic temper would stand a cross-examination on
such a day as this," she says, with a slight frown; it might be slighter
but for the diamond. "Besides, I have made answer to that question a
thousand times. Did I not, indeed, answer it in the most satisfactory
manner of all when I promised to marry you?"
"Yes, you promised to marry me, I know that, but when?" asks he,
quickly. "Up to this you have always declined to name any particular
date."
"Naturally," says Miss Blount, calmly. "I'm not even dreaming of being
married yet, why should I? I should hate it."
"Oh! if you would hate it," says Stephen, stiffly.
"Yes, hate it," repeats she, undauntedly. "Why, indeed, should we be
married for years? I am quite happy, aren't you?"
No answer. Then, very severely, "Aren't _you_?"
"Yes, of course," says Mr. Gower, but in a tone that belies his words.
"Just so," says Dulce, "then let us continue happy. I am sure all these
past months I have been utterly content."
"You mean ever since Roger's departure?" asks he, eagerly.
"Yes; principally, I suppose _because_ of his departure." There is a
good deal of unnecessary warmth in this speech. Yet the flush has faded
from her cheeks now, and she is looking down toward the sea with a
little set expression round her usually mobile lips.
"We are happy now, but why should we not be even happier if we were
married?" asks Stephen, presently, trying to read her averted face.
"Why? Who can answer that?" exclaims she, turning her face inland
again, with a little saucy smile. Her thoughts of a moment since are
determinately put out of sight, resolutely banished. "You surely don't
believe at this time of day that a bird in the hand is worth two in the
bush? That is old-world rubbish! Take my word for it, that _two_ birds
in the hand do not come up to even one sweet, provoking, unattainable
bird in the bush!"
She has risen, and is now standing before him, as she says this, with
her hands clasping each other behind her head, and her body well thrown
back. Perhaps she does not know how charming her figure appears in this
position. Perhaps she does. She is smiling down at Gower in a half
defiant, wholly tantalizing fashion, and is as like the "sweet,
provoking, unattainable bird" as ever she can be.
Rising slowly to his feet, Gower goes up to her, and, as is his lawful
right, encircles her bonnie round waist with his arm.
"I don't know about the bird," he says, "but this I _do_ know, that in
my eyes you are worth two of anything in all this wide world."
His tone is so full of feeling, so replete with real, unaffected
earnestness and affection that she is honestly touched. She even suffers
his arm to embrace her (for the time being), and turns her eyes upon him
kindly enough.
"How fond you are of me," she says, regretfully. "Too fond. I am not
worth it." Then, in a curious tone, "How strange it is that you should
love me so dearly when Roger actually _disliked_ me!"
"You are always thinking of your cousin," exclaims he, with a quick
frown. "He seems never very far from your thoughts."
"How can I help that," says Dulce, with an attempt at lightness; "it is
so difficult to rid the mind of a distasteful subject."
"And," eagerly--"it is a distasteful subject? You are really glad your
engagement with him is at an end?"
"Of course I am glad," says Miss Blount, impatiently; "why should I be
otherwise? How often have you told me yourself that he and I were
unsuited to each other--and how many times have you reminded me of his
unbearable temper! I hope," with passionate energy, "I shall never see
him again!"
"Let us forget him," says Gower, gently; "there are plenty of other
things to discuss besides him. For one thing, let me tell you this--that
though we have been engaged for a long time now, you have never once
kissed me."
"Yes--and don't you know why?" asks Miss Blount, sweetly, and with all
the air of one who is about to impart the most agreeable
intelligence--"Can't you guess? It is because I think kissing a
_mistake_. Not only a mistake, but a positive _betise_. It commonizes
everything, and--and--is really death to sentiment in my opinion."
"Death to it?--an aid to it, I should say," says Mr. Gower, bluntly.
"Should you? I am sure experience will prove you wrong," says Dulce,
suavely, "and, at all events, I hate being kissed."
"Do you? Yet twice I saw you let your cousin kiss you," says Stephen,
gloomily.
"And see what came of it," retorts she, quickly. "He got--that is--we
_both_ got tired of each other. And then we quarrelled--we were always
quarrelling, it seems to me now--and then he--that is, we _both_ grew to
hate each other, and that of course ended everything. I really think,"
says Miss Blount, with suppressed passion, "I am the one girl in the
world he cordially dislikes and despises. He almost told me so
before--before we parted."
"Just like him, unmannerly beast!" says Mr. Gower, with deep disgust.
"It was just as well we found it all out in time," says Dulce, with a
short, but heavily-drawn sigh--probably, let us hope so, at least--one
of intense relief, "because he was really tiresome in most ways."
"I rather think so; I'm sure I wonder how you put up with him for so
long," says Gower, contemptuously.
"Force of habit, I suppose. He was always in the way when he wasn't
wanted. And--and--and the other thing," says Miss Blount, broadly, who
wants to say '_vice versa_,' but cannot remember it at this moment.
"Never knew when to hold his tongue," says Stephen, who is a rather
silent man; "never met such a beggar to talk."
"And so headstrong," says Dulce, pettishly.
"Altogether, I think he is about the greatest ass I ever met in my
life," says Mr. Gower, with touching conviction, and out of the
innocence of his heart.
"Is he?" asks Dulce, with a sudden and most unexpected change of tone. A
frown darkens the fair face. Is it that she is looking back with horror
upon the time when she was engaged to this "ass," or is it--"You have
met a good many, no doubt?"
"Well, a considerable few in my time," replies he. "But I must say I
never saw a poorer specimen of his kind--and his name, too, such an
insane thing. Reminds one of that romping old English dance and nothing
else. Why on earth couldn't the fellow get a respectable name like any
other fellow."
This is all so fearfully absurd, that at any other time, and under any
other circumstances, it would have moved Dulce to laughter.
"Isn't the name, Roger, respectable?" asks she, sweetly, as though
desirous of information.
"Oh, well, it's respectable enough, I suppose; or at least it is hideous
enough for that or anything."
"Must a thing be hideous to be respectable?" asks she again, turning her
lovely face, crowned with the sunburnt hair, full on his.
"You don't understand me," he says, with some confusion. "I was only
saying what an ugly name Dare has."
"Now, _do_ you think so?" wonders Miss Blount, dreamily, "I don't. I
can't endure my cousin, _as you know_, but I really think his name very
pretty, quite the prettiest I know, even," innocently, "prettier than
Stephen!"
"I'm sorry I can't agree with you," says Stephen, stiffly.
Miss Blount, with her fingers interlaced, is watching him furtively, a
little petulant expression in her eyes.
"It seems to me you think more of your absent cousin than of--of anyone
in the world," says Gower, sullenly. Fear of what her answer may be has
induced him to leave his own name out of the question altogether.
"As I told you before, one always thinks most of what is unpleasing to
one."
"Oh, I daresay!" says Mr. Gower.
"I don't think I quite understand you. What do you mean by that?" asks
she, with suspicious sweetness.
"Dulce," says Stephen, miserably, "say you _hate_ Roger."
"I have often said it. I detest him. Why," with a sudden touch of
passion, "do you make me repeat it over and over again? Why do you make
me think of him at all?"
"I don't know," sadly. "It is madness on my part, I think; and yet I
believe I have no real cause to fear him. He is so utterly unworthy of
you. He has behaved so badly to you from first to last."
"What you say is all _too_ true," says Dulce, calmly; then, with most
suspicious gentleness, and a smile that is all "sweetness and light,"
"_would_ you mind removing your arm from my waist. It makes me feel
faint. Thanks, _so_ much."
After this silence again reigns. Several minutes go by, and nothing can
be heard save the soughing of the rising wind, and the turbulent rushing
of the stream below. Dulce is turning the rings round and round upon her
pretty fingers; Stephen is looking out to sea with a brow as black as
thunder, or any of the great gaunt rocks far out to the West, that are
frowning down upon the unconscious ocean.
Presently something--perhaps it is remorse--strikes upon Dulce's heart
and softens her. She goes nearer to him and slips one small, perfect
hand through his arm, she even presses his arm to her softly, kindly,
with a view to restoring its owner to good temper.
This advance on her part has the desired effect. Stephen forgets there
is such a thing as a sea, and, taking up the little, penitent hand,
presses it tenderly to his lips.
"Now, do not let us be disagreeable any more," says Dulce, prettily.
"Let us try to remember what we were talking about before we began to
discuss Roger."
Mr. Gower grasps his chance.
"I was saying that though we have been engaged now for some time you
have never once kissed me," he says, hopefully.
"And would you," reproachfully, "after all I have said, risk the chance
of making me, perhaps, hate you, too? I have told you how I detest being
kissed, yet now you would argue the point. Oh, Stephen! is this your
vaunted love?"
"But it is a curious view you take of it, isn't it, darling?" suggests
Gower, humbly, "to say a kiss would raise hatred in your breast. I am
perfectly certain it would make _me_ love _you_ MORE!"
"Then you could love me more?" with frowning reproach.
"No, no! I didn't mean that, only--"
"I must say I am greatly disappointed in you," says Miss Blount, with
lowered eyes. "I shouldn't have believed it of you. Well, as you are
bent on rushing on your fate, I'll tell you what I will do."
"What?" he turns to her, a look of eager expectancy on his face. Is she
going to prove kind at last?
"Sometime," begins she, demurely, "no doubt I shall marry you--some
time, that is, in the coming century--and then, when the time is finally
arranged, just the very morning of our marriage, you shall kiss me, not
before. That will prevent our having time to quarrel and part."
"Do you mean to tell me," indignantly, "you have made up your mind never
to kiss me until we are married?"
"Until the morning _of_ our marriage," corrects she.
"You might as well say _never_!" exclaims Gower, very justly incensed.
"I will, if you like," retorts she, with the utmost _bonhommie_.
"It is getting too cold for you to stay out any longer," says Stephen,
with great dignity; "come, let us return to the house."